Monday, October 30, 2006

It's been a busy day, not just one of those days that is filled with busyness, but one of those days where busyness seems to fill you, to posess you, to act like a drug that completely overwhelms all your senses and leaves you at the end of it feeling exhausted and empty and lacking.

The combination of that, and as a result of my stress levels being the highest I can remember for a long time, I've decided to avid the internet and msn and chatting online tonight. I've decided rather to get a book I've been meaning to read for a while, and to just curl up on my couch, the home-made hazlenut cappuchino, my book and I, and just indulge my mind for a night, alone with my own thoughts and questions.

I think confucious got it right:

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance”

Thursday, October 26, 2006

This week is, (or was should I say?) National Curry Week, and all over the western world we celebrated the good 'ole curry. I shall be partaking myself tonight, I'm going round to a friend's from church with a few others, and we are getting a HUGE takeout to stuff ourselves with. We'll probably regret it in the morning...

Apparently scientists have discovered that curry has addictive properties, well not to be funny, but I could have told you that due to 15 plus years of curry experience!!

A curry fact: Did you know that the most popular curry in Britain, the Chicken Tikka Masala, was actually invented for the British in India? Us brits couldn't cope with the spiciness and heat of the local's fayre, (tikka) so they added a cooling ingredient.... Yoghurt!

And thus Tikka Masala was invented!! (the Masala bit is the yoghurt)

There you go, I've bored myself!!

Those of you who don't like Spicy food will be glad to know this week also is National Eating Out Week as well, so go and eat!! If you're like me, and eating out is a luxury you can rarely afford, go an get some junk food and enjoy it!! Sometimes the simplest pleasures in life like good unhealthy greasy food are what makes it all seem worthwhile!!

So go on, get that takeout menu, and go order!! If you're not cooking it, technically it's eating out!!

I've got through several parcels of stock, priced and ready to put out; (I'll get the staff to do that - hey that's what staff are for!!) I've sorted out my Boss's wireless broadband problems on his laptop temporarily with a network cable plugged directly into the router; I've served customers, sorted out a tasks priority for the rest of the day for the staff, talked about a major bookstall we're doing for a conference next month, all before lunch!!

Now I'm going to go and sit down and listen to podcasts on my ipod and close my eyes for an hour...

I've been regularly downloading quite a few, mainly preaching/teaching, but due to comments left here, I've discovered two new ones:

1. Multiple Sclerosis Podcast- Todd & Kim present this (Kim has MS, Tood is the hanger on! lol joking!) and it's a really good listen, and I've found it very useful so far... Check out Larry The Lesion!! lol

2. MSBPODCAST - very good and funny as well, a mix of music and discussion/news/personal reflections on dealing with MS everyday

Both of these you can subscribe to using I-Tunes and many other podcast service providers, go and check them out!

I don't normally talk about MS much, mainly because I've been diagnosed nearly four years now and have what i would consider quite a mild form, i.e. at the moment I'm still working full time and am on Copaxone. Most of my symptoms I either ignore because they're so trivial, or I just get on with. I haven't had a lot of connection with other people with MS to be honest, partly due to living in denial, (lol) but also partly because for me the more I talk about it, the more I worry about the future.

Actually, I think most of it's still denial lol.

When I was first diagnosed, I actually enquired about local MS groups, but most of them were full of older people, or at least people with an older view of life, if you know what I mean. Maybe it's a sign of my generation, but I tend to keep myself to myself, even when it results in depression, which now that I type it seems a bit silly.

Hmmm...

That made me think.

I hate it when I do that to myself!!

Anyway this post has been far too long running without a point, so I will end it here!!

Monday, October 23, 2006

I've been very busy with work and too tired and fed-up to blog of late. I'm already thining "bah humbug" and it's only the end of october. I hate the build up to christmas when I'm working in a shop, it seems to spoil it all somehow, and I'm getting a bit cynical, even though I work in a Christian Bookshop.

We seem to be overloaded with parcel after parcel of christmas stuff, most of that I can only describe as "kitch". I'm working as hard as I can to clear parcels, and then another lot comes. I'm so tired I can hardly think, and being in charge is getting tiring. So much to do, so little time has not only become my catchprhase, in terms of work, it's my life at the moment.

Outside of work, I'm quite happy. I've been busy practising for a concert that we actually had on Saturday, to raise funds for Operation Christmas Child/Samaritan's Purse, who distribute the shoeboxes for kids. It actually went really well, and all of us felt a sense of God being there on the night, so it was cool. We managed to raise over £300, and totalled with the car boot sale, and coffee mornings, etc we had, we've now got over £600 to give them, which I'm really happy about.

My sister got third place in the Urban Idol competition, which we were all really pleased about (including her) and also she got a heck of a lot of media coverage in the local papers, which means that she'll probably have more opportunities to sing now, which is great! We're all really proud of her.

I've been over to belfast for a few days to see my family, as I had leave to use up, and that was great. I may post some photos when I've got more time, of my uncle and my new cousin, little Samuel!! It was really good to re-connect with my family, and spend alot of time with my grandparents, who I really do look up to. (mum's parents; dad's dad died when i was young and his mum when i was a bit older, but i don't remember much about them) I realised when I flew back from northern ireland how much I miss them, and it really encouraged me to get to know my spiritual and natural heritage through them. Swapping stories of when my mum and aunt and uncles were little, talking about my granny and grandads younger years and the struggles they had trying to provide for their family, really made me feel part of something, that I haven't felt in a long time.

And on the faith front, things are a bit stirred up at the moment, as God is giving me a very clear message of where he wants my life to head, I've just got to figure out how I get there and pay off my debt first. I've been very very challenged by God lately, and challenged that I know what he wants me to do, now I've just got to go and do it.

People Whos's Blogs I Read:

WISE PEOPLE:

"Jesus did not die at the hands of muggers, rapists, or thugs. He fell into the well-scrubbed hands of deeply religious people, society's most respected members." - Brennan Manning

"All religious and political systems, Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba's children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative or liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel-uncontaminated by cultural dreck, political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisies of bullying religion." - Brennan Manning

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ~ Albert Einstein

"To disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity." ~ Oscar Wilde

It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins. ~Chinese Proverb

"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes,
flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.
Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes,
certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow."
- Mahatma Gandhi

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
- Albert Einstein

"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." - Sir Thomas Beecham

"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." - Winston Churchill

"If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money." - Simone Weil

"Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well." - C. H. Spurgeon

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
I Corinthians 13:4-8

"Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone." - C. S. Lewis

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
- Elie Wiesel
(Oct. 1986)

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." - George MacDonald

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." - Martin Luther King jr

"It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for themÉ. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say." - Thomas Merton

""There are two kinds of people; those that finish what they start, and so on..." Robert Byrne

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
--Galileo Galilei